


Dinosaur-Shaped Quinoa Pasta Bake

by ryttu3k



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is a Dork, Cecil is Human, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Khoshekh is a cat and thus gets into everything, M/M, Positive Cecilos Fic Drive, Rainbow Cocktails, responsible drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryttu3k/pseuds/ryttu3k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil prepare dinner. Science may be involved. Written for the Positive Cecilos Fic Drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinosaur-Shaped Quinoa Pasta Bake

For all of Night Vale's oddness, cooking has become one tradition that Carlos and Cecil can share.

Carlos has been a fan of baking ever since one of his teachers remarked that it was, in fact, very much like chemistry. Carefully measuring and weighing ingredients, adding them _just so_ , in just the right amounts and proportions, carefully heating the stove or the oven to produce complicated chemical reactions that will turn a pile of dry fluffy ingredients and some wet things into a cake. Or cookies. Or muffins. Or, regularly, on Sunday mornings when neither of them have any work and Cecil is a sleepy presence going over the morning paper in the kitchen, home-made bread.

Sure, he has to get used to cooking with wheat-free ingredients, but at least gluten-free cookbooks are abundant even outside of Night Vale.

Cecil, on the other hand, is a tinkerer. He was a teenager when he discovered he had a knack for throwing ingredients together and making something that, from the sum of its parts, shouldn't have been delicious but actually was. He's the one who delights in browsing farmer's markets for interesting new produce to use (after The Orange Incident, Carlos did temporarily go off citrus, but the things Cecil did with a probably-aptly-named-but-thankfully-totally-normal blood orange managed to lure him back over to that side), adding a pinch of this, a dash of that.

It's terribly imprecise and not at all scientific, but generally, Carlos can't bring himself to mind too much.

They're sharing the kitchen, today - Cecil is making _something_ for dinner (Carlos has learned not to ask until it's on the table, but it somehow involves dragonfruit, paprika, sprinkles, and a large quantity of dinosaur-shaped quinoa pasta), humming three days ago's weather and occasionally doing a little shimmy as he adds another ingredient, Khoshekh winding contentedly around his ankles, and Carlos is making... something.

It involves a bit of food colouring, a few choice liqueurs, and colourful liquids in beakers (one being gently heated by a bunsen burner), and Carlos can't help but grin as he prepares them.

"Done!" proclaims Cecil as he slides the dish into the oven, brushing paprika off his hands and propping his chin on Carlos' shoulder. "Oooh, are you doing _science_? Dear Carlos, as much as I like your science, is that really safe to do in the kitchen?"

Khoshekh meows his agreement, leaping up to the counter, missing, and giving it up as a bad job, hovering over Carlos' other shoulder (the one Cecil isn't using as a pillow) instead. Cecil smiles involuntarily, reaching out to scritch Khoshekh gently behind the ear ridges and 'inadvertently' wrapping his arm around Carlos' shoulders as well.

"It's food science!" Carlos says in a feverish whisper as he carefully, ca-a-a-a-arefully tips the last beaker in, glowing a fluorescent green. "Cariño, can you get the shot glasses? The regular ones, not the ones that keep yelling in Swedish."

Suddenly intrigued, the comforting weight of Cecil's arm vanishes as he hurries to fetch the glasses, Khoshekh paddling through the air behind him to try and catch his hair. Returning, he sets them down, gazing at Carlos expectantly, and Carlos gestures to the stainless steel pitcher before him, setting a two-way funnel in place so both can be filled up at the same time.

"Behold," Carlos says in what Cecil describes as his Science Voice, "Pre-dinner drinks!"

And he pours the contents of the pitcher into the funnel, hearing a sudden delighted gasp and clapping as it pours out - red, orange, yellow, green, blue (it's glowing slightly, but that's okay), purple, and finally a pink only slightly less lurid than Pepto-Bismol. They swirl a little, but settle pretty much immediately, forming distinct bands of rainbow colour.

Snagging the sprinkles from where Cecil had been cooking, Carlos sprinkles a few choice ones on top, turning to Cecil and grinning.

"It's magic!"

"It's different densities! See, the red layer is quite heavy, so the orange sits on top of it, and the pink is the lightest -"

"No, no," Cecil laughs, leaning in to drop a light kiss on Carlos' lips, "It's magic, the touch you have with it. It's art as well as science!"

Art as well as science? Carlos enjoys the visible light spectrum, of course, and that had been his inspiration - admittedly, the ultraviolet part of the spectrum wasn't pink, and he couldn't exactly see it, but...

Well, with Cecil's enthusiasm, happily matching various items of clothing he's wearing to the colours in the glass, he can probably live with it being art as well.


End file.
